Armfield writes about a spouse who returns from a mission very different. This reminded me of The Return of Martin Guerre, which was based on a real 16th century mystery involving a spouse who comes back from the war changed for the better! The book written by Princeton historian Natalie Zemon Davis inspired a movie starring Gérard Depardieu in 1982. I remember a college friend mentioned in class that when he was in high school he watered Davis’ plants when she was out of town and we were all very impressed, geeky History and Literature majors that we were!
Another spouse who comes back different is Leslie Moore’s husband in Anne’s House of Dreams (1917). Those who know their L.M. Montgomery will recall that the man turned out not to be her husband at all, freeing her (after years of misery) to marry someone else and become the mother of heartthrob Ken Ford!
Janet Lambert’s Penny Parrish series, set in the 1940s about a military family, strikes a dreamier note. In Dreams of Glory (1942), the second book about Penny, the irrepressible Parrish family has relocated to West Point where their older son David is a cadet. I loved reading about Penny and her friend Carrol’s visits to Boodlers and other places at the US Military Academy as well as learning West Point slang. Lambert was one of my favorite authors as a teen.
Another book about dreams is more unnerving. In Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr (1958), a girl recovering from a long illness starts drawing and soon realizes that whatever she draws with a particular pencil turns up in her dreams that night. The dreams become more disturbing and she does not know how to control them. I am always intrigued to think there have been movie and TV adaptations of this book. I got this memorable book as a child and didn’t know there was a sequel until relatively recently. Thank you to Nicky Smith for finding me a copy! Hmm, I feel a reread coming on . . .
My friends Jeanmarie and Julie introduced me to Judith McNaught’s books and I became an enthusiastic fan of her historical and contemporary romances. A Kingdom of Dreams (1989) is a New York Times bestselling historical romance novel set during the early 16th century. It relies on an old-fashioned but reliable trope of the heroine falling in love with her kidnapper, although her Scottish family is horrified by any kind of relationship with the English enemy. McNaught's storytelling is warm, humorous, and captivating, and it is a shame that health issues prevented her from writing more books.
My final link is The Kingdom Under the Sea by Joan Aiken (1971), a dark fairy tale collection by the author of The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. I have not read this for a very long time but it has memorable silhouette illustrations by artist Jan Pieńkowski. It won the Kate Greenaway Medal, a British literary honor for distinguished illustrations in a children’s book. Some of my favorite illustrators have been thus recognized: Victor Ambrus, Pauline Baynes, and Edward Ardizzone.
Have you read any of these? Did you play #6Degrees this month? Next month (May 7, 2022), Kate will start us off with Peter Carey’s True History of the Kelly Gang. Can you believe May is imminent? I have a space heater going as I type this . . .
6 comments:
All of these books are new to me, and most of the authors. The beginning book sounds interesting too. I like your connections between books.
Wow! What a list. I absolutely love it. You even managed to get from one "Under the Sea" book to another. What a pleasure. And you have my first name in one of the titles. I must look for that. I never read a book with a title with my name. Sometimes a character was called that but never the title.
Thanks for visiting my Six Degrees of Separation which ended with a book by one of my favourite authors, The Sunrise by Victoria Hislop.
I saw the Depardieu film on February 24th, 1985. I know the exact date because I was in labor half the time and gave birth to my first son the next morning! Lovely chain here.
I really like Joan Aiken and I have quite a few books illustrated by Jan Pienkowski, sadly he died just a few weeks ago, but he was a fair old age.
I love impersonation stories, Tracy, but the twist in Martin Guerre was that everyone, including the wife, liked the impostor better than the real man!
Marianne, this book Marianne Dreams has a minor cult following. It is well worth hunting down (or if you are near Boston, you can come read mine).
Davida, that is not my recipe for enjoying a movie OR distracting yourself from labor pains! However, it is certainly memorable.
Katrina, I had not seen the news of Pienkowski's death. Thank you for telling me.
I have never read the entire Wolves series chronologically but it would be fun to do.
I am checking out The Return of Martin Guerre--that definitely sounds like the kind of book I would like.
While I was reading about it, I thought of the Anne of the Island subplot, which I have always enjoyed, and then you connected to it!
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